We started the new year off by wiping every teams points to a clean slate and by launching a weekly tournament that allowed teams to qualify for a tournament with a prize pool of $100,000. Thanks to all of you and your support, we were able to bring that prize pool up to $173,425. And counting! I think I speak for everyone here at Hi-Rez Studios when I say you guys rock! We still have another month for this prize pool to reach beyond $200K so let's make this happen! I BELIEVE!

As we finally approach the end of this path, we now know what teams will be flown out to Atlanta, Georgia to compete for this enormous prize pool. These teams will be competing in front of a live audience at Center Stage in a double elimination tournament starting on Friday, March 28, 2014 and ending on Sunday, March 30, 2014. If you're interested in attending the tournament, tickets are still on sale. You can find more information on the tournament and where to buy tickets by going here[1] . These games will also be streamed in front of thousands of viewers on both SmiteGame[2] and SmitePro[3] .

Without any further delay, ladies and gentlemen, I give you your qualifiers for the Smite Launch Tournament:

Along with this known information, we can also share with you the first round match ups in this double elimination tournament:

Match A: Cognitive Gaming vs Team Coast Blue

Match B: Cloud 9 HyperX vs Snipe

Match C: Team Solomid vs Denial eSports

Match D: Team Dignitas vs SK Gaming

Congratulations to all these teams for their hard work and dedication to SMITE eSports. You've certainly earned your spots in this tournament series. We'll see you all in Atlanta in a month!

I also want to throw a big shoutout to all the other teams that have competed in these past 8 weeks as well. We saw a big turnout for this tournament series as a whole with new teams signing up each and every week. Thanks to these other teams showing up, we were able to put together a full broadcast every Saturday and Sunday of 2014. We've learned a lot these past few weeks on many fronts and we plan to take all of that knowledge with us and capitalize on it during the Smite Launch Tournament. We are very very excited for this. And we hope you are too!

As always, here is the recap of Week 8 and the overall standings in each region: